EU to remove Grenada from offshore ‘blacklist’

By: Christopher Copper-Ind | 15 Jan 2018

The Caribbean island of Grenada has confirmed it is expecting its imminent removal from the EU’s list of 17 blacklisted countries.

The OECD’s Financial and Economic Unit is due to meet on 23 January, whereupon the final decision is expected to be announced. Keith Mitchel, prime minister of Grenada, said “Grenada is expected to be removed before the end of January from that blacklist. So I think we would have gone through that process successfully.”

Mitchel took pains to assert that his jurisdiction should not have been included on the list in the first place: “But the specific case of Grenada, we had asked for some communications sent to us so that we would move and deal with what we are supposed to do,” the prime minister told the Curaçao Chronicle.

“And they took a very long time to send it, so since the blacklist came on they have sent the information and we then replied and, like I said, before the end of the month, from indications in correspondent received last week, we expect to be release from that blacklist.”

Barbados, St Lucia, and Trinidad and Tobago make up the other Caribbean jurisdictions to have been included on the EU’s blacklist. The formal announcement from the EU is due on 31 January.